Patients suffering from post-traumatic peripheral nerve pain treated with Lyrica (pregabalin) capsules CV experienced significantly reduced pain compared to those taking placebo, according to new data presented at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting. The data also showed that patients treated with Lyrica reported less pain interference with sleep and were significantly more likely to report feeling better overall at the end of the study compared with placebo.

Post-traumatic peripheral nerve pain is a difficult to treat condition that occurs after nerve damage due to trauma from accidental injury or surgery. It can be a chronic condition, affecting the injured area with pain persisting long after the initial injury has healed. Traumatic injury causing long-lasting changes to the peripheral nervous system - the communications network that transmits information to and from the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) and every other part of the body - is believed to be the cause of this persistent pain. Post-traumatic peripheral nerve pain can have a wide array of symptoms, including numbness, tingling and prickling sensations, sensitivity to touch or more extreme symptoms including burning pain.

"The findings of the study are good news for the many patients who suffer from this painful and debilitating condition," said Robert van Seventer, chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and director of Amphia Pain Clinic and Research Centre, Amphia Hospital, the Netherlands. "Post-traumatic peripheral neuropathic pain has historically been a challenging condition to treat so this data demonstrating the ability of pregabalin to provide relief for patients is encouraging."

The study found patients treated with Lyrica experienced significantly reduced pain compared to those taking placebo. At the end of the study, patients receiving Lyrica had, on average, a pain score that was 0.62 points lower on an 11-point scale compared to placebo. Patients receiving Lyrica reported less pain interference with sleep compared to placebo. At the end of the study, patients receiving Lyrica had an average self-reported weekly pain-related sleep interference score of 2.73 (from a baseline of 4.1) on an 11-point scale measuring how much pain had interfered with sleep during the past 24 hours, compared to 4.13 for placebo (from a baseline of 4.8). Additionally, at the end of the study, significantly more patients receiving Lyrica (64 per cent) reported feeling 'improved' compared to placebo (41 per cent).

In the United States, Lyrica is approved for the management of fibromyalgia. Lyrica is also indicated for the management of painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia (pain after shingles), and for the adjunctive treatment of partial onset seizures (a type of epilepsy) in adults.